On this page: Philoponus

PHILOPONUS.

after his capture, sent an executioner to him with a cup of poison, which Philopoemen drank off calmly, after inquiring whether Lycortas and the cavalry had reached Megalopolis in safety.

Such was the unworthy end of this great man, who died in the same year as his great contem­poraries Hannibal and Scipio. The news of his death filled the whole of Peloponnesus with grief and rage. An assembly was immediately held at Megalopolis ; Lycortas was chosen general, and invaded Messenia in the following year with the flower of the Achaean troops burning for revenge. Messenia was laid waste far and wide, and Deino-crates and the chiefs of his party were obliged to put an end to their lives. The body of Philopoe­men was burnt with gieat pomp, and his remains were conveyed to Megalopolis in solemn procession. The urn which contained the ashes was carried by the historian Polybius, and was received by his grateful fellow-citizens with the bitterest sorrow. His remains were then interred at Megalopolis with heroic honours ; and soon afterwards statues of him were erected in most of the towns belong­ing to the Achaean league. (Plutarch, Life of Philopoemen; Polyb. ii. 40, x. 24, 25, xi. 8—10, xvi. 36, xxii. 23, xxiii. 1, 2, 9,10, xxiv. 5, 9, 12 j Liv. xxxv. 25—29, 36, xxxviii. 31—34, xxxix. 49, 50; Paus. viii. 49—52, these four chapters are the most important; see also iv. 29, vii. 9, viii. 27. § 15 ; Thirl wall, History of Greece^ vol. viii. pp. 191, &c., 263, &c.)

3. A freedman of T. Vinius, and consequently called T. viniusphilopoemen, assisted Tanusia, the wife of Vinius, in saving the life of her hus­band when he was proscribed by the triumvirs. As a reward for his fidelity, Augustus afterwards raised Philopoemen to the equestrian rank. In Appian he is erroneously called Philemon (Suet. Aug. 27 ; Dion Cass. xlvii. 7 ; Appian, B. C. iv. 44.)

PHILOPONUS, JOANNES flwrfwijj o $i\<Wos), or JOANNES GRAMMA'TICUS (o rpapiMTiKSs), an Alexandrine scholar of great renown, which he deserved but little on account of his extreme dullness and want of good sense, was called &i\6irovos because he was one of the most laborious and studious men of his age. He lived in the seventh century of our era; one of his writings, Physica, is dated the 10th of May, a. d. 617. He'calls himself ypajLL^ariKS^ un­doubtedly because he taught grammar in his native town, Alexandria, and would in earlier times have been called rhetor. He was a disciple of the phi­losopher Ammonius. Although his renown is more based upon the number of his learned pro­ductions, and the estimation in which they were held by his contemporaries, than upon the intrinsic value of those works, he is yet so strangely con­nected with one of the most important events of his time, though only through subsequent tradition, that his name is sure to be handed down to future generations. We allude to the capture of Alex^ andria by Amru in a.d. 639, and the pretended conflagration of the famous Alexandrine library. It is in the first instance said that Philoponus adopted the Mohammedan religion on the city being taken by Amru, whence he may justly be called the last of the pure Alexandrian grammarians. Unon this, so the story goes, he requested Amru

VOL. III.

321

PHILOPONUS.

to grant him the possession of the celebrated library of Alexandria. Having informed the absent khalif Omar of the philosopher's wishes, Amru received for answer that if the books were in conformity with the Koran, they were useless, and if they did not agree with it, they were to be condemned, and ought in both cases to be destroyed. Thus the library was burnt. We now know, however, that this story is most likely only an invention of Abu-1-faraj, the great Arabic writer of the 13th cen­tury, who was however a Christian, and who, at any rate, was the first who ever mentioned such a thing as the burning of the Alexandrine library. We consequently dismiss the matter, referring the reader to the 51st chapter of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall." It is extremely doubtful that Philo­ponus became a Mohammedan. His favourite authors were Plato and Aristotle, whence his ten­dency to heresy, and he was either the founder or one of the first and principal promoters of the sect of the Tritheists, which was condemned by the council of Constantinople of 681. The time of the death of Philoponus is not known. The following is a list of his works: — 1. twj> efc t^v Mauveus Koff^oyoviav tfyqyjiTiK&v Xoyoi £"', Commentarii in Mosaieam Cosmogoniam, lib. viii., dedicated to Ser-gius, patriarch of Constantinople, who held that see from 610 to 639, and perhaps 641. Ed. Graece et Latine by Balthasar Corderius, Vienna, 1630, 4to. The editor was deficient in scholarship, and Lambecius promised a better edition, which, how­ever, has not appeared. Photius(Bill. cod. 75) compares the Cosmogonia with its author, and forms no good opinion of either. 2. Disputatio de Paschale, "ad calcem Cosmogoniae," by the same editor. 3. Kara HpoK\ov irepl atStorrjTos /coV/uou AiJ(76ts, Xoyoi 177', Adversus Procli de Aeternitate Mundi Argumenta XVIII. Solutiones, commonly called De Aeternitate Mundi. The end is muti­lated. Ed.: the text by Victor Trincavellus, Venice, 1535, fol. ; Latin versions, by Joannes Mahotius, Lyon, 1557, fol., and by CasparusMar-cellus, Venice, 1551, fol. 4. De quinque Dialectis Graecae Linguae Liber. Ed. Graece, together with the writings of some other grammarians, and the Thesaurus of Varinus Camertes, Venice, 1476, foL 1504, fol. ; ad calcem Lexici Graeco-Latini, Venice, 1524, fol. ; another, ibid. 1524, fol.; Basel, 1532, fol. ; Paris, 1521, fol. 5. 2,vvayu>yf) Sidtyopov crijfj.acriav Sicupdpws tovov^v^v Collectio Vocum quae pro diversa significations Accentum diversum accipiunt^ in alphabetical order, It has been often published at the end of Greek dic­tionaries. The only separate edition is by Erasmus Schmid, Wittenberg, 1615, 8vo, under the title ot Cyrilli^ vel, ut alii volunt, Joanni Philoponi Opus-cidum utilissimum de Differentiis Vocum Graecarum, quod Tonum, Spiritum, Genus, &c., to which is added the editor's Dissertatio de Pronunciatione Graeca Antiqua. Schmid appended to the dic­tionary of Philoponus about five times as much of his own, but he separates his additions from the text. 6. Commentarii in Aristotelem^ viz. (1) In AnaLytica Priora. Ed.: the text, Venice, 1536, fol. ; Latin versions, by Gulielmus Dorotheus, Venice, 1541, fol. ; Lucillus Philaltheus, ibid. 1544, 1548, 1553, 1555, fol. ; Alexander Jus-tinianus, ibid. 1560, fol. (2) In Analytica Poste-riora. Ed.: Venice, 1504, fol., together with Anonymi Graeci Commentarii on the same work, ibid. 1534, fol., revised and with additions, together